As the Trump presidency nears, one looming concern is what it will mean for freedom of the press. During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said that he wanted to change libel law to make it easier to sue the press for large amounts of money. He referred to the press as “dishonest,” “disgusting” and “scum.” Since his election, Trump has ignored usual protocols concerning use of a press pool. What will it mean to freedom of the press when Trump has all of the powers of the presidency to use against it should he choose to do so?

One thing President Trump will not be able to do his achieve his goal of changing libel law. To begin with, libel law is determined by each state; there is no federal law of libel and it is highly unlikely that Congress ever would create one.

More importantly, the Supreme Court long has held that the First Amendment limits when there can be liability for libel. In fact, the restrictions on defamation recovery that Trump complains about are a result of Supreme Court decisions. The court has held that a public official or a public figure can recover for defamation only by proving with clear and convincing evidence that the statement was false and that it was uttered with “actual malice”; that is, the speaker knew the statement was false or acted with reckless disregard of the truth. There is no indication that any justices on the Supreme Court want to reconsider this long-established law. Nor should it. As the court explained: “Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

But Trump’s repeated advocacy for changing libel law reflects troubling concerns. It is another example of his frequently expressed hostility to the press. During the campaign, he mocked the disability of a New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, and repeatedly lashed out at reporters such as Megyn Kelly of Fox News and Katie Tur of NBC. He threatened to sue the New York Times for publishing his income tax return and the women who accused him of sexual harassment. He constantly has shown an inordinate sensitivity to criticism, whether from reporters or in the form of satire, such as on “Saturday Night Live.” The Trump campaign denied press credentials to media that criticized him, including the Washington Post, BuzzFeed and Politico. His statements about libel law also reflect his lack of understanding of the law and the First Amendment.

The president has enormous power to intimidate and even persecute the press. Ironically, the Obama administration was one of the most aggressive in history in bringing legal actions against the press. As New York Times reporter James Risen said: “So if his campaign is any guide, Mr. Trump seems likely to enthusiastically embrace the aggressive crackdown on journalists and whistleblowers that is an important yet little understood component of Mr. Obama’s presidential legacy.”

For example, the Espionage Act of 1917 is a broadly written federal statute that allows for criminal prosecutions of those who disclose national security information. Since its enactment, 12 prosecutions have been brought under it for disclosures of information and nine of those were during the Obama administration. Leaks of information have been crucial in informing the public of government abuses, whether Watergate or the revelation of torture at Abu Ghraib or the existence of massive illegal surveillance by the National Security Agency.

The Obama administration has threatened reporters with jail for not revealing their sources. There is no First Amendment right for a reporter to keep a source confidential. Many states, like California, have shield laws that allow for this, but there is no such law at the federal level. This gives the president a powerful tool to harass and intimidate the press.

More generally, there is the question of access to information, including how the Trump administration will handle requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Presidential administrations have varied greatly and there is every reason to fear that the Trump administration will be more secretive than most.

Perhaps Donald Trump as president will have a different attitude toward the press than Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. But if history is a guide, a president who is highly sensitive to criticism and who is disdainful of the press is a recipe for great concern, as was demonstrated most vividly during the Nixon presidency.

The stakes are enormous. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Or as James Madison put it: “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.”

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